The Institute of Neurobiology is a research and teaching body of the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, a minority institution. Its 12 faculty members are engaged in basic research in the neurosciences, and in training students to do so. They have need of administrative infrastructure and opportunities to develop themselves as fully competitive members of the world scientific community, as well as to be role models to their minority students. The objectives of this proposal are: 1) to provide institutional research development support to enhance the infrastructure that will facilitate development of basic mental health research projects based on cellular and comparative studies of the nervous system, and to offer advanced training and experience for faculty members by supporting an exchange of visits between the Institute and experts from other institutions: 2) to provide support for 5 new individual investigator research projects which are basic to the Institute's goal of developing a critical mass of active investigators conducting research in neuroscience. This will enable not only the development of these research areas, but also the training of minority research assistants at the graduate and undergraduate levels; 3) to give an opportunity to minority undergraduate and graduate research assistants to become involved in ongoing, already funded associate investigator projects.